Silence Is Not Golden
by whatcoloristhesky
Summary: Silence can be torture sometimes. Short oneshot from the POV of one of the unnamed Socs involved the night Bob was killed.


**Silence Is Not Golden**

_A/N: I should be asleep, but I was watching Full Metal Jacket and a certain scene in that influenced me to write this. It has nothing to do with the movie or the subject matter in the movie; Stanley Kubrick is merely a wonderful director and one of the ways he portrayed something got me thinking. This is what came out. Let me know if it's horrible or anything seeing as I wrote it within a half hour. :) Also, I'll try to get an actual update in for my fics. _

_Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns. I merely borrow and enjoy. :P_

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It's nerve-wracking. Here I am, sitting with my parents at this hearing when Bob's barely been buried a week and a half, and those stupid greasers are still smirkin' at us all over town for winning the rumble. I twiddle my thumbs. Half of me hates them 'cause they've always been a public disgrace and half of me just wants to get the hell out of this damn courtroom. None of this would have happened if we'd just stayed down by the riverbed and kept drinking. None of this would have happened if we hadn't gone driving around town that night.

Randy's been talking nonsense all week. He didn't show up at the rumble and he won't sneer back at those damn greasers. The ones who're friends with that kid. The ones that think they're on top since they won. I was there. They cheated. They pulled pipes on us. Damn greasers.

I don't even know if I mean anything anymore. Randy hasn't said much that makes sense, but I get the feeling he's over this whole rivalry thing. I get the feeling he's not even all here anymore. I don't know if that means he's gone crazy from this whole thing or if that means his mind is somewhere else. I mean, my mind is somewhere else. Sometimes I think I'm crazy, too.

I'm always thinking these days. I can't concentrate in school and stupid kids keep coming up to me and asking me about what happened to Bob. I wanna strangle them, and as I think about it right here, right now, I can feel my hands tighten into fists, and I want to punch something. Not a face. I don't want to jump someone after this. Never again. I thought I did when that black-haired kid stabbed Bob. I was scared and mad and upset, and I just wanted to kill someone myself. But that rumble, man … that rumble.

The minute that low-life pulled the piece of pipe, we all ran. I was pissed; I wanted my revenge. Adrenaline was rushing and as I went to get into David's car, I stopped and looked back at the mess. I spit at them, half to get the taste of blood out of my mouth and half to damn them all to hell. That's when I noticed that kid. The friend of the guy that killed Bob. Ponyboy. He's up there on the stand now, looking like he's about to chew his damn fingernails off.

"Quit chewin' your fingernails, son," the judge tells him, and there's silence.

It's like I just zoomed in on him, because suddenly I've got tunnel vision. Silence. I hate silence now. I used to like it. I used to like silent nights when I'd get my girl, Beth, to myself and we'd lay on the hood of my car over by the river after a date. Now I can't stand it. I need sound. I need fucking sound.

I urge the judge to continue, but he's looking at files and sizing the kid up. It hasn't been long and I know it, but it's driving me mad. A few seconds of silence reminds me of how right after I spit on the mud, I looked up and saw the kid lying motionless on the ground. I thought I'd killed him. I was the one wailing on him. I thought I'd actually killed him, and in the second it took for me to go from rageful to wanting to puke, he moved, and then I wanted to puke even more. There were yells and talking and music and engine roars all around me, but I heard nothing. Like someone turned the sound down just for me.

It was like that for Bob. One moment we're dunking the kid's head under the fountain, and that Johnny Cade kid is down on the ground. One moment there's noise. Splashing, yelling, laughing, the sound of feet on pavement. It's all there. And then silence. All I hear is silence when Bob got killed. I blocked out his scream and the sound of his body hitting the ground and the sloshing from the kid as he slid under the water completely and the sound of everyone else. Cursing, panicked what-the-hell-do-we-do's, and feet pounding against the ground as we hightailed it out of there. I can imagine how it sounds, but I can't actually hear it. I don't know how much I want to hear it.

I sit up in my seat and run my hands over my face as my parents give me looks. Ponyboy's brothers look just about as nervous as him and I've got to wonder if the silence kills them. I've got to wonder if the silence kills anyone else. Randy? David? I wonder if they can hear anything when these kinds of things go through their mind. When they witnessed Bob getting stabbed.

I used to think silence was golden. I don't think that anymore. Silence just about kills me now.

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_Review?_


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